State Facilities in Yaguajay Recover after Irma

Accelerated actions are being carried out in Yaguajay to restore state-run institutions

Although Irma not only messed up, but also caused deep wounds in the economic and social infrastructure of the northernmost municipality of Yaguajay, in the Cuban province of Sancti Spiritus, the hard work undertaken just a few hours after the rain and wind stopped is already yealding results.

Marelys Cedeño Cardoso, vice president of the Municipal Defense Council, told Escambray about the accelerated actions being carried out to address the damages to state-run institutions.

“We have specially focused on roofs of the facilities, and many of them now look better than before the hurricane”, she said, and mention the local bus station, the Culture House of Mayajigua, and the Boris Luis Santa Coloma School of the El Rio district as examples.

The official stressed the role played by workers in each of the damaged centers. The electric service has been fully restored, while daily attention is given to irregularities that may appear, she added.

“Water supply has been fully re-established all over the territory, including the replacement of pumping equipments in La Rafaela and El Polígono, in the region of Meneses, a the future solution for the pump at Iguará II neighbourhhod, serving a population of nearly 500 inhabitants”, Cedeno Cardoso said.

According to her report, 25 of the 62 commerce and gastronomy facilities damaged by the hurricane are already restored. Most of the repaired centers are neighbourhood markets.

The educational sector is the one which reports less progress, with a large number of damaged facilities (44). Repairs have been only concluded in two warehouses, a daycare, and the schools at El Río, Narcisa and Vitoria.  The efforts are now concentrated, said the official, in some other institutions in Centeno, Mayajigua, and the town of Yaguajay, among others.  

Information was also provided by the vice president of the Municipal Defense Council on the damages reported on the sport infrastructure, where nine facilities were severely damaged —six of them were totally destroyed—, and four had been already repaired last Monday. The source also pointed out that thirteen cultural centers were impacted by the hurricane: two cinemas, five libraries and four Houses of Culture, most of which have been already restored.

Other severe damages were identified in the transportation sector, with affected 65 bus stops (all of which were restored), as well as the bus station of Mayajigua.  On the other hand, the actions at both the bus stations of Yaguajay and Meneses are about to be concluded.

The work aimed at restoring the 15 health institutions that were damaged in this territory is worth noting. Until last Friday, —Cedeño Cardoso said— only a few doctors’ offices were still pending, as well as some repairs in the roof of the polyclinics of Meneses, Yaguajay and Mayajigua, and in the hydraulic networks of the last two. The Vitoria’s Maternity and Nursing Homes are ready, along with the Grandparents’ House of Yaguajay.

Not less important were the action undertaken in the local textile workshops and the administrative offices of that sector. Recovery work is also underway in San Jose del Lago Motel.